Brit Chick Runs

- that is the question!

Now don’t go getting huffy on me – I’m not talking about some celeb-style maple syrup lemon water detox here, or drinking only water and eating air for 2 weeks. Not at all!

I actually want to go on a processed food detox. Here’s Da Thang: despite my more regular blogging, I’m not posting every meal for 2 reasons. 1) I don’t want my blog to be a ‘this is what I ate for breakfast/This is what I ate for lunch/This is what I ate for dinner’ blog (nothing against them – I just don’t want to do that). 2) My meals really are, on the whole, very dull and very similar (I’m ashamed to say it…but I’ve had oatmeal (cooked with butternut) and a side of parsnips *four* nights running for dins!). Also, when I’m at the universistat, I tend to rely on bars for lunch far too much. I’m not eating my legumes, my grains, my superfoods…

I’m also feeling pretty crummy at the moment – difficulty sleeping, dry hair, crappy looking skin, down mood, dark eye circles etc – and I think A LOT of this has to do with the lack of variety in my diet, with too much reliance on quick-fix processed things, like Clif bars. I can’t even remember the last time I had a tbsp of flaxseed, or some spinach in a green monster! Girl misses her vits!!!!

SO – after reading about Ashley’s super looking detox the past few weeks (and feeling incredibly inspired), and the aforementioned reasons (plus the fact I really want to break out of my foodie rut with some new recipes) – I’m thinking a No Processed Food detox.

- no more bars for lunch!

- no oatmeal! (I really REALLY need to get out of this oatmeal rut I’m in – oats twice a day every day for 2 weeks is nicht gut, for me, in my book)

- no coffee! / limited to one a day

- no added sugar! (I seem to be adding some sort of syrup to everything these days <- I think my tired body wants the quick energy fix. But in all honesty, I am having too much sugar…)

- no Diet Pepsi (nooooooooooooooo!)

- Lots and LOTS of legumes, grains, spinach, new recipes, healthy fats, & new ideas.

What do y’all think? I had so much more energy, slept better and looked and FELT healthier over the summer when I was eating more variety, and I want to feel like that again! And you know, I respond well to rules :p if I just said to myself ‘try new recipes, avoid bars’, it just wouldn’t happen

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Moving on! And this is gonna be quick cos OHMYGOSH I am tired, and have a Google reader bursting at the seams :s

This morning started bright and early with a giant apple + wheatgerm, and then a date with Jillian and a 4miles/50minute walk/run

Melon followed:

As well as some beautiful maple syrup walnut black coffee in my Healthy Living Summit swag bag mug thing:

Delish! I drank that on my way to taking Hannah to work. Before I left though, i cooked some oats – 1/2 c., with just under 2c. water, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. I let it sit for 45mins (whilst I was out driving) on the keep-warm plate on the Aga. By the time I came back – OH MY!

The oats had puffed and were sooo thick and fluffy and chewy! I could nay believe it, they were DELICIOUS! I topped them with some cold soya milk:

I wish these photos could do the oats justice :’(

Best EVER!

Theeeen it was off to uni, with a little baggie of roast celeriac and parsnip

As you do!

I ate at uni, came home, and ate more – cereal, yogurt, dinner, lots o’ chocolate :p

OH, and I baked these bars for my mum (except I added in walnuts, sunflower seeds, coconut and apricots too) but totally forgot to take a photo My mum LOVED them though!! She’s banned them from going to work – they’re for her stomach only

Annnd now I’ve spent the evening working (learning about animal behaviour; my favourite module!) and sorting out car business….I bought a car on eBay last night! Cheap as chips, but it has MOT til August and will get me from A to B whilst Hannah uses Erica (our share car) for work. When she finishes work in June to move to London for Teach First, I’ll sell the car I just bought and use Erica again. Confusing…!? Yes

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PS – so after my Sunday run, I iced my legs:

(Everyone uses chips and frozen black eyed beans, right?) But my question iiiss – are you meant to put something between the iced stuff and your skin? And how do you hold the iced stuff there? Elastic bands just didn’t cut it :/

G’night!

Horse photos coming!

Just call me Bob. Bob the Builder, that is. Is he as famous overseas as he is in England? If not, you had a lucky escape, cos my GOSH is he one annoying character.

(source)

However, we do have one major thing in common; building skilllz, innit!!

He builds toy constructions, I build sandwiches. Oh yes.

Just like he mixes cement, I mix my sandwich fillings. In this case – boiled parsnip and butternut (I did drink the water the veggies boiled in, fyi; I love veg water! Think of the vitamins, the VITAMINS!! Gah), mashed with a blob of soya yogurt, a splash of cocoa-balsamic, mixed herbs, agave, salt, pepper and mixed spice (or cinnamon, I cannae remember which):

Appetising, non?

That went onto layer one:

Layer two = good old Tesco value cooked beets!

Layer three – squishy roast aubergine (or eggplant, if you roll that way)

Lidded:

A beastie boy of a sandwich!!! Beats a house any day :p

A cabbage garlic soy sauce left over butternut stir fry acted a side dish

I also built jelly donut CUPCAKES this weekend!! From the wonder that is Veganomicon, no less-

They may be ugly, but they sure did go down a storm!! Booooo yeah.

What else did I build….oh yeah, OATS with peanut flour/melted banana/cinnamon sauce:

I had to snap it quick before that lovely peanut banananananary sauce just sunk right in…

But OH boy it was good! The next day, I gave almond extract a run in the oats:

Didn’t work as well as vanilla…good, but not good enough, in my expert opinion. Hurrumph. I still repeated it this morning (Sunday) though, for whatever balmy reason:

Pre-mix above, post-mix below

Why do I never learn – don’t fix what ain’t broken! (even if Bob encourages you too…‘Boooob the Builder, CAN WE FIX IT!? Booooob the Builder, YES WE CAN!’ NO. We CAN”T. No idea what I’m on about? lookey here)

Ok, so I’ve done the Bob half of the title…how about the Thrills and Spills part!?

Thrills:

I RAN!!!!!!!

Ohemgee.

I got up, laced up my shoeloos, ate an apple the size of my head, 2tsp of wheatgerm and a finger full of jam, and headed out. My aim was to run about three miles – but I did six!

SIX!

I actually ran/walked seven miles, with LOADS of little breaks to stretch, walk, have a drink etc etc, so all in all it took about 1hr20mins, but I actually RAN a total of about 6miles *happy dance*! The pain that began in my calf muscles (way back when) and moved to my shins (2 weeks ago) is retreating back again, HA! Shins were cool, calf muscles a little achey. But not, ohmygosh-we-want-to-die achey, just-we’ve-worked-hard achey. I’ll take that

I reckonz another week off of running, and by next weekend I should be raring to go. I cannot contain the joy! FYI: The doc appointment on Friday was pointless; he can’t refer me to a sports physio on the NHS

Another thrill – yet more Veganomicon produce! Chewy chocolate raspberry cookies this time, except made with gran-made bramble and blackberry jam, as opposed to raspberry

I don’t know about the cookies (they’re for my mum’s work) but damn did that dough taste good :p

The final thrill of the day? Why, gram flour pancakes for lunch of course! Topped with boiled mashed parsnip (mixed with agave and cinnamon) and a blob of melted banana:

Parsnip mush:

Banana mush:

You’d be amazed at how well parsnip and banana go together – seriously! Plus, I am LOVING gram flour pancakes – packed with protein, and oh-so chewy

Now, let me tell you about the Spills:

Hannah took Tig (her horse) out for a hack today, which is fair enough. She’d been out for 20mins or so, when – whilst i was upstairs – my mum got a phone call from the sister herself, saying she’d come off and Tig was on the road! ERrrrr cue PANIC from sweet mutti bear! She dashed out of the house, and a few mins later, I came downstairs (unawares) and my step dad said to me ‘Hannah’s fallen off on the road and Tig is loose’!!

Obvs, I shoved my trainers on and ran out of the door and down the road. I couldn’t see my mum ahead (as it turns out, she hitched a lift with a random car – she couldn’t drive her car out cos if Tig was loose, she’d need to catch him) but as I ran further down the road, I could see the tell-tale white marks on the road, from Tig’s metal shoes. I kept going, turned up the path where Hannah had gone, and saw my mum.

As it turns out, Tig and Hannah had been galloping in one of the stubble fields about 1.5miles from home, and were going to cross from one to the other. As they got closer, the bit she thought was a track for crossing, was actually a huge open ditch! It totally took them both by surprise, Tig slammed on the breaks and spun, and Hannah went out the side door. Tig then cantered off (feeling somewhat shaken! Horses don’t like losing their riders) and crossed a MAIN road, back down the track he’d been up, and then was caught by my mum, cantering down the road leading to our house!

And do you know what the crazy thing is? LOADS of cars passed him – loose, on the road, with no rider – and not one car stopped. What the-?

So anyway – my mum caught Tig and led him back up the track to meet Hannah (who was unharmed – the ground was soft and muddy, she’s young and still bounces :p). She got back on, and finished her ride, including going over the ditch. Phew!

Whilst all that was going on, my poor lady Chika was in the field, freaking out! She gets terribly upset when her boyfriend goes anyway, but today, I think she knew something was wrong – she spent the whole time neighing and galloping circles round the field (i took these before The Phonecall):

Her poor stressed lil face

Le sigh. She is so silly sometimes! At least she got a half decent workout

Soo that was Sunday – somewhat eventful! I spent the afternoon baking, mucking out, and watching eBay like a hawk; I was bidding on a (very cheap, we’re talking £200) car cos, now Hannah is working full time and I need the car for uni, we’re in a predicament! Alas, I was the highest bidder til the LAST second when i got pipped – by £10! – at the post. Bah. I hate eBay sometimes.

How was your weekend? Have you had any thrills (or spills!?)?

Seriously, legs? SERIOUSLY!?

You know I said yesteryear that the pain in the old shins seemed a little less? Well, have I got a tale for you!

Actually, I don’t, I just like that phrase but anyway – when i went to bed last night, a NEW PAIN arose! This time, if I flex my left foot up or down, there’s a slight weird niggly odd feeling in the [tendon?] verticle to about my 3rd toe. Gah. It doesn’t feel like it’s ohemgee-need-an-operation serious (though saying that, it’ll probably turn out to be gangrene, and this time next week I won’t even have a left foot to moan about), but I sure am thankful I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow! Finger’s crossed Mr Doc can solve my woes

In the meantime, I’ll settle on other, less scary ways to make me smile:

MM…more oats in a jar.…(and I still have another empty jar waiting! Hooray!)

Howevz, the problem with these tiny 227g jars is that they hardly fit a darn thing in them! Hence why the overflow was served up with a side of melon:

Overflow:

Melon:

Yes.

I tried to be different today, and mixed in some carob powder and maple syrup – a combination I normally love – but it did NADA today! I could barely taste it! Alas, I still did a sweet as job of cleaning the jar:

hehe! My thumbnail looks so neat and tidy in that pic! If ONLY you could see the state my nails are really in I try and grow them and file them and make them look preddy, but horses + cold weather + haynets + rug buckles = skanky nails. BOO HISS.

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So, at the weekend, my stepdad made something using chopped tomatoes (hear me out). Since that day (Satdee), the half empty can – NO! Scrap that! The half FULL can (positivity folks!) has been sitting in the fridge, looking sad and lonely. Every day, i’ve said to my mamma, those tomatoes need using up…but nothing happened. So, today, i TOOK. CHARGE. I had beets on my mind, cocoa, and tomatoes – which called for only one thing; a beet cocoa tomato sauce!

Before you go getting those knickers in a twist over my sheer genius at the combination, I can’t take credit for it :’( In fact, it was a recipe over at (Never)Home Maker that created it. Howevverrr, when I stopped by there today, i could find no trace of said recipe. OH! So here’s what went in the mix:

1/2 can chopped tomaddoes

2 tsps cocoa powder

salt to taste

a squeeze or so of agave (to taste)

a lorra dried mixed herbs

a scrunch of pepper (yep, to taste)

a lorra mixed spice

1 giant and 1 small cooked beet (aka 2 medium beets!)

I shoved it all in Vincent:

Made him do that blendy thing he does oh-so well, and voila!

One gloriously rich tasting sweet lovely sauce!

I had a load of it mixed with chickpeas, alongside perfect roast veggies and stir fried cabbage with soy sauce and garlic:

I can’t decide…..

Very scrumptious! My mum finished off the other half of the sauce with some pasta this evening

Talking of this evening – mine was finished off with a healthy dose of textbook and chocolate:

NOW – moving on.

I’ve received a few comments recently about – yet again – portion size (some more politely put than others! ) and I feel I need to address the issue. It’s something which has been brought up on other blogs before (see Emily’s post, and Katie’s brief referral at the end of her post) and I have actually talked about it on here before, but I shall do again.

I do have big portions! And I’m not ashamed to admit it! I can look at some blogs and envy the tiny delicate neat plates..but that’s not me. I just don’t feel satisfied without a good load of food in my stomach In an ideal world, I would like to eat smaller portions cos yes, sometimes I do feel uncomfortably full after a meal. But as Katie said in her post – sometimes it’s worth it! I LOVE roast veggies (like, seriously) and I LOVE taking my time over meals, savouring every bite. Ergo, i tend to make a lot of my favourite foods, and spend ages enjoying them Tis how I roll! At some point, I would like to reduce my portion sizes (we’re talking about veg here) just so my vision of what is ‘normal’ doesn’t get TOTALLY skewed, but for now – I like eating lots of veg, and that’s what I’m gonna keep on doing.

At least until my supply of parsnips and/or squash runs out – they’re the only veg worth really pulling the boat out for

Question: How do you judge portion size? Do you like large portions, or small portions?

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Lighten the mood a bit, shall we?

Blog searches (everyone seems to be doing these atm!)

- old cereal

- foods that take 2days (2 days to what, I say??)

- wonder woman photoshop

- swap your wife.com (my post entitled ‘I’d swap my wife for peanut butter hummus’ or something, written about 10months ago, is still haunting me then….)

- eat live run green monster (eerrr wrong blog – I think you either want here or here)

- kate moss smoking (x 2 – why does that phrase get me so many hits!?)

And my personal favourite:

- fully nakd girles (whoever searched that clearly needs to check his/her spelling, if they want to get what they’re REALLY looking for!)

Holla holla!

Aight? How’s Humpday treating you? I’ve had a tiring one! And a cold one, and a wet one, and a busy one and a jar-filled one. Let’s start from the top:

Woke up from a terrrrible night of sleep; at 3.30am, I awoke thinking I had a runny nose. I touched my nose, and it turned out I had a nose bleed!!?? And not just any old one, a real bad one! Wtf? I hadn’t banged my nose, I don’t have a cold…I just got a nose bleed, randomly in the night. I got one randomly the other day too :s eek!

Anywayz, that kept me up for a good 1/2hr +, so I was not a happy camper when the old alarm buzzed this morning. Nothing an apple, wheatgerm and Jillian won’t solve :p I put on my shin sleeves today, to see if they would fall off/cut off circulation to my foot and turn it blue. As it turns out, the latter was the case – they were too tight, and I think they actually CAUSED me pain! Sooo I’ll be sending them back Nice try, sleeves, nice try.

Post Jillian, I went for a walk/run (whilst feeling very, very sorry for myself. I just want to RUN! Properly! None of this pain-faff). Now, if before, the pain was 8/10, today it was maybe 6/10! That’s LESS!!

LESS!!!!!!!!

Still there, and still stopping me from running….But

LESS!

I’m still gonna see the doc though. I’m not convinced I’m healing…..(oohh – do you think a lack of sleep + stress could be causing me problems?)

Breakfast came in the form of melon, frozen grapes and coffee:

Why oh why do my photos look dark on here? They’re BRIGHT on my camera! Booooo hiss.

Alongside 1/2 c. oats, cooked wiiiith salt, cinnamon, vanilla and lots o’ water, with a soya yogurt and milk swirl at the end:

There are oats in there :p

Very scrummeh (hating the dark camera work. Seriously.)

I spent the morning doing animal instinct research – the topic of my coursework for my animal behaviour module (the ONE module I actually LIKE at uni!!!). I feel like I accomplished soo much, it was fab! Don’t you love being on a work-related role!? And it was the perfect day to be stuck inside – outside was cold and wet and windy and looked like junk. I’ll take a warm kitchen and a laptop any day

At lunch, I really wasn’t very hungry, but that’s besides the point – I decided to do a roast veg tutorial! See, one of the most common email questions I get from readers is how do I roast my veggies? So today, I’ve decided to reveal my method….

Step One: Get a roasting/oven tray, and grease it/spray it/do whatever you want to it so crap doesn’t stick to it (dang I know how to phrase things well!)

Step Two: Gather your veg together:

Today, I went for celeriac, parsnip (the best thing to roast!), butternut squash, leek and aubergine.

Step Three: Cut up all your victims into little bite-size ish chunks (if you want a quicker cooking time, like me) that are all roughly the same size:

Now – with parsnips, I do something different – I alllllwaaaaays cut out THIS bit:

The core-y section. For some reason unbeknownst to me, that bit never seems to cook and always stays hard, so I just cut it out (and eat it whilst I’m cutting – I love raw parsnip :p)

Step Four: Season!

Salt, pepper, cinnamon, thyme, dried herbs, cocoa, agave nectar…whatever you want! I went for salt, pepper, mixed herbs, and HP sauce

Spray/drizzle oil/etc and then you’re good to go! I bake mine in the Aga hot oven, which is…er…hot. I don’t know the exact temp! I’d reckon it’s probably 180degrees/350F plus, but I’m not sure. The Aga is also a genius at keeping in moisture, whilst the fan oven we have is a NASTY piece of work and dries food out. So you’ll have to experiment

I roast for abbbout 20-25mins, turning and spraying half way through. You’ll know everything is done cos if you stab it all with a knife, it’ll be soft (and hopefully gooey, if you like ‘em like me :p). Then – serve!

There you have it, a plate of perfect roast veg

Soooo good!

Oh – that jar on the side? An empty PB jar….I ate the WHOLE thing JUST by dipping my knife in it whilst cooking! Holy cow. There was basically zero PB left, but even so, I stuffed in some lightly boiled sprouts and broccoli:

What can I say, I had a green craving. (FYI – cinnamon raisin PB residue and Brussels sprouts DOES work! You heard it here first.)

I’ll get onto lunch part two in a minute

Firstly – oh yum:

Oh yes:

Oh yay!

Baked for Mamma-Bear’s place of work

Next up on the OhYum-OhYes-OhYay scale? OATS IN A JAR! Lunch’s veg-in-a-jar just didn’t cut it, so I did it the reaaaal way

• 55g oats
• salt
• agave
• vanilla
• cinnamon
• 1 serving peanut flour
• water
• an empty-ish (crunchy!) PB jar

Bowl for overflow:

I’m so grateful my Mamman AND my sister eat peanut butter now – a steady stream of empty jars comin’ my way

More squishy roast veg (cooked in apple balsamic, cinnamon, agave, mixed herbs, salt)

Dessert:

Stellar ingredients list!

The last of my frozen grapes! *sadface*

Yum yes yay

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Now, back to lunch. This bit links up to the Dairy Debate Part Deux! I’m sure y’all remember the Dairy Debate Part Une (I don’t have a link…gah, just scroll down the blog a bit :p), and I think this picture explains my conclusion:

Greek yogurt (and a banana).

I’ve actually been pretty…worried? about writing about this on the blog, but now’s the time. Here’s the thing:

I decided to TRY having a pot of Greek yogurt a few weeks back. The first time I had it, it was like ‘oohh yes, I needed that’. Since then, I’ve had a handful of pots, but already I don’t feel the need for it as much (today, it was a bit blah). However, at this time in my life, I don’t feel quite confident enough in my food choices (if that’s the right phrase) to branch out more into new foodie-territories. TBH, I’m so stressed and all over the place right now that my diet is pretty limited and ‘safe’ cos I’m not in the right head space to go mad experimenting, which is a shame; mentally, half of me does NOT want to eat that yogurt (ethics). But the other half knows I need non-soy protein, and is telling me to eat it. I’m not happy as such about eating it, and I can’t wait for the day when I feel calm/collected/brave enough to venture out into non-soy related proteins and use them to my advantage….if that makes any sense. But right now, I’m just not brave enough! I’ll get there soon.

I do however still think of myself as vegan. Ok, a lot of you may disagree with me there – but I will ONLY eat the odd pot at home, and on rare occasions (literally, once a week). If I went to a restaurant or was on a plane or whatever, I would describe myself as vegan, and I still believe in veganism. I’m just trying to do what’s right for me RIGHT NOW, and sometimes that means stepping away from the label and following what I need.

It’s a weird one!

Any thoughts?

Guten abend, readers from far and wide. How are we all on this fine pre-Hump Day-day?

I felt like I needed to redeem myself today – why? Cos yesterday, a) I had oatmeal for dinner, which is boring, and b) the muffins I made were NOT up to scratch. Nothin’ wrong with them as such…but I’m a perfectionist, and I wasn’t happy!

So, first job when I got home (after eating and seeing to the horsey shaped lumps in the field) was BAKING! I used this recipe, except I added in crushed walnuts, shredded toasted coconut, and chopped fresh dates. Oh, and nutmeg in place of the cardo-whatever, cos I had none. That makes sense right? Anyway:

Muffins!

Lots of big fat beautiful muffins!

They smelled divine, and are definitely an improvement on yesterday Success! Baking skillz redeemed. Though I’ve now run out of black bananas…Le sigh.

Next redeemation project (yes, not a word, i know) – dinner! I was flicking through Eat, Drink & Be Fabulous (ok, Vegan) and I stumbled upon this recipe:

It sounded yummeh, so I turned it into a marinade for some tofufu:

Blob of mustard.

A few splashes of apple balsamic (I never measure marinades, plus I had no apple cider :’()

Agave, lemon juice, cinnamon, mixed spice (no cumin, I couldn’t find it in the cupboard. Darn our huge spice collection/poorly laid out cupboard!!!)

I let the tofu sit in the mix whilst I got on with the rest of my day, which involved – as y’all so kindly asked – frozen grapes:

And oatmeal (1/2 c. oats, 1 & 3/4c. water, salt, vanilla extract, cinnamon, milk at the end):

Photo-toe-doed on a beautiful wrinkled tea towel :p

Pre-breakfast, i’d had a small apple, and did a ‘brick workout‘ of sorts – see, I’m trrrrying to keep my endurance running fitness up, without running – so i’ve taken to attacking my dvd workout collection with fury (praise be for Jillian!) and then going for a 3mile ish walk/run (mainly walking!). I really hope my fitness doesn’t go….

ANYWAY!

After oats, I shot off to uni to meet up with my dissertation partner and attend a tres dull lecture (on the history of psychology. Dry dry dry). I ate the most foul orange/clementine whilst I was there, drank some coffee, and ate a mini oatmeal raisin Clif bar On the way home, I had some roasted celeriac/parsnip, and demolished this pear I’d been craving ALL. DAY.

Be gone, pear! Be gone.

Cereal and soya milk aussi made an appearance:

Coming home was good, cos these babies arrived!

Shin sleeves! Can i afford them? No. BUT if they mean I can run again, I don’t care I’ll test them out tomozzle, and see what happens.

Whilst we’re on the subject of running, I’m a published writer! Uni newspaper:

Article by moi:

With my name spelt wrong. Hmph.

You know what’s annoying? They EDITED my article, so any heart, soul, spirit (and grammatical correctness….!!!) it had are GONE! I actually really don’t like what is published at all, the sentence structure is awful, and I’m really sad that my original article became that Here’s hoping the second article is more true to life!

Ok – back to my tofu! I fried it:

And it was good Lemon juice and mustard are two flavours I very rarely use – and heck knows why, cos they are SUPER!!!

DinnerSelf – redeemed.

Dessert was chocolate, obviously:

And a lonnnnng date with my textbooks. The excitement never ends.

Have you ever had a sports injury?

Have you ever tried using shin sleeves?

(ps – aren’t you proud of me!? Three days, three posts! I’m on a roll :p)